Chicken Pox, Check-ups, Confinement and Hydrotherapy :)

For the past 3 days, I have been confined to my room. My 4 hall mates have to use a different bathroom, and I am not allowed to use the hall phone, or even venture out to the lobby. Why you ask? Well, on Friday we found out that my friend John LaVanture has Chicken Pox. I have had a strange rash on my legs for about a month now, but all of the sudden this rash became a big deal.

You see, originally I went to the deans about my ring toe (the fourth one, right beside the pinkie toe :P) because in vespers it started to hurt like crazy! When Mr. Rasmussen and Mr. James got to looking at my leg, they kind of assumed that I had chicken pox. (because John has chicken pox?) So with that, I was confined to my room. And it has been wonderful. Haha!

Yesterday I watched some sermons on Rosa's little portable DVD player that she brought for me. I also read a book by Doug Bachelor called Who Do You Think You Are? about our identities in Christ. Very, very powerful little book.

On Friday night I noticed a big, long, red streak going from my hurt toe all the way up to 2 inches past my ankle. I pretty much started freaking out and insisting that we take me to a doctor (or just skip a step and take me right to the morgue). You see, that streak meant that the infection in my puffy, painful little toe was trying to spread all over my body and kill me! (hi, my name is melodramatic! What's yours?)

So anyways... We did hot and cold treatment on it since it was already about 10pm. *Side note: Hot and Cold treatment is a form of self torture natural remedy where you stick the affected limb into a tub of scolding hot water, as hot as you can stand, for 3 minutes. Then you have another tub, full of freezing cold water, on standby. The 2nd tub is there so that at the end of your 3 minutes in the hot water you may thrust your poor, afflicted appendage into this subzero pool of misery for 30 whole seconds! You know what you do after that? Repeat the process about 5 times. Haha!*

So yeah! We did that to my foot on Friday night and then around 11pm finally got to sleep. We got up at 1am to make sure that the red streak wasn't spreading, or else we'd have to go to the ER at one in the morning. Thank goodness it wasn't moving, so we went back to bed. Woke up yesterday morning to find that my toe was a little more swollen, so I called my daddy, who is a medical Superman (paramedic). He said that I should go to the doctor and get antibiotics, and/or try soaking it in Epsom salt. I soaked my foot for 2 hours in Epsom salt, and then put a charcoal poultice on it for the rest of the day. 12,000IUs of vitamin D and 8,000-10,000mg of vitamin C later, the red streak is completely gone as of last night, as is most of the pain in my toe! Praise the Lord!

I still have the rash on my legs and whatever, so I am still quarantined. I have an appointment at the clinic on Monday, so hopefully when they tell us that I, in fact, do NOT have chicken pox! then hopefully I will be unleashed allowed to return to my normal civilian life. Although I am ready to escape the confinement of these four walls, I will admit that I have thoroughly enjoyed having the bathroom to myself. :) Anyways, that's life right now.

Wear your seatbelt, take your Vitamin C, and tell your family you love them!

PS - I love you gram, mommy, daddy, Libby, Maddi, Allie, the rest of the Hasty crew, Uncle Mel and his clan! You're all the cooliest!

PPS -
*24 days until my mission trip to Honduras
*3 months 13 days until Jr/Sr Campout (crazy! I remember my jr year campout like it was yesterday!)
*3 months 25 days till grad
*6 months 18 days until my 18th birthday! :P haha

Out with the old, In with the new... :)

At the end of this past summer, I was in a pretty awesome hardcore dirt biking accident. I broke my wrist, chipped my tooth, and got a pretty good concussion out of the whole deal. Over Christmas break, we found out that, while the bone in my wrist is healed for the most part, I have some ligament damage in there that will need to be fixed surgically. The surgery has a pretty long recovery period (depending on what all they have to fix once they get in there) so we decided that I would have to wait until this coming summer after graduation for me to have the surgery. My hand still functions completely normally. The only problem is that it's always tingly and painful. In order to try and minimize my pain between then and my surgery, I was told to minimize the use of that hand/arm. It's my left hand, and I am left handed, so that was a pretty stupid idea, I thought. This included playing flute too!


I came back to school and told Craig that I couldn't play anymore. Shortly after that, I decided to take up piano, as the piano is apparently a more "neutral" position for my wrist than the flute (or something like that). I have had one lesson so far and it's going GREAT! I like piano a lot. 


The moral of the story is this: why does God allow pain to happen? The pain in my wrist let me know that there was a problem in there. A problem that needed to be fixed. Pain and suffering in this world lets us know that there is a problem with it. It's called the sin problem and it needs to be fixed. Just like my wrist will need surgery, we all need God to do a heart surgery on us to replace our cold, stony hearts. We can take "pain killers" like relationships, money, status, and lots of other things to help us forget that something is wrong. However, just like Advil doesn't fix the core problem in my wrist, these things don't make our ailment go away. So whenever you feel like you're going through a lot and you don't understand why God is allowing things to happen to you, remember: it's a reminder from God that this world is not our home so we shouldn't get too comfortable here.


Makes me homesick for Heaven though, how about you?


He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away."
--Revelation 21:4

Sun Run Here I come! :)

I am currently training for a 10K in April called the Vancouver Sun Run. It is the second largest timed 10K in the world with a grand total of 60,000 participants per year. Is that cool or what?! I am so excited.

Yesterday in PE, I had the opportunity to test out my training thus far. We had one hour to make it to the slide (approx. 5K from the school) and back (10K total). My goal for the Sun Run is 48 minutes, but I knew that I would not be able to go quite that fast yet. My goal was to make it to the slide before we had to turn around! With much thanks to Heather and Andrew, who kept me motivated and truckin' along, we made it! Now I just have to shave some time off of it and I will be good to go!

This morning as I was replacing the water jug for the girls' dorm water fountain, I smooshed my finger in between the dispenser and the jug. When I went to pull my finger out, the jug tipped over! (It was one of the inconvenient ones that didn't have a handle.) And when the jug hit the wall, it EXPLODED! Right in half as a matter of fact! It was quite the predicament as approx. 5 gallons of water (mixed with dirt and aloe from the house plant that got in the way of the explosive jug) spilled all over the carpet. All of this took place before 6am, mind you. Needless to say, I am wide awake today. And I got a 2nd shower this morning. Haha Anyways, that's life these days. It's week of prayer and Nathan Renner is here. He's a great speaker and this week of prayer is just what I needed as I am trying to strengthen my relationship with God as much as possible before grad! Less than 4 months till graduation!!! :D

Las Vegas and other interesting happenings... :)

Well, it was an amazing tour in Las Vegas, and I was really blessed by Revelation Today by John Bradshaw. It was a real privilege to be a part of that ministry sharing our music with the world! Since I have less memory than that of a grapefruit, I have forgotten most of the exciting happenings of the trip except eating in a casino. That was really rather fun!

Since we have come back from the trip, school and work have resumed pretty uneventfully. I have been practicing guitar a lot so that I can finish the song that I am trying to write... As part of my practice, I learned one of my very favorite songs by Mumford and Sons called Awake My Soul. If you haven't heard it, [don't you dare close this tab, because you haven't even finished this whole post] open a new tab and go listen to it!! I pretty much love Mumford and Sons.

I am still trying to decide where to go to college. I have prayed a lot about it and I am thinking more and more that University of Kentucky might be detrimental to my spiritual health, so I don't know. God will definitely have to work some miracles to pay for Southern, but that's where I would really like to go. I mean, yes. There are some bad apples at Southern. But at least it's an apple orchard, you know? Good apples have the right environment to grow there and they don't have to be influenced by the bad ones. It just seems that the more I pray about it, the more University of Kentucky seems like a pumpkin patch. If I was looking for other things in life, then sure! Pumpkins are fine. But I don't want to be a pumpkin. The whole reason that I came to Fountainview was to become an apple, and the last thing I want to do is go right back to being a little pumpkin. You see, pumpkins are mushie on the inside. People don't generally scrape the insides of apples out for halloween because they are consistent all the way through. Pumpkins look great on the outside and they look like they have everything together, but they allow people to just come and empty them out. That's not cool. I don't like that empty feeling the world offers. I know that I could choose to make UofK an apple orchard experience or whatever, but I am honest with myself enough to know that my environment affects me a lot. We'll see where God leads and I would still really like to live at home so I guess UofK is not completely out of the picture, but I am not about to turn back on my faith so that I can live at home... That's a hard thing to say but I am sure that where ever God leads me will be the best for my growth and for my family.

Dear Lord, PLEASE not more than 3 hours from home. I beg of you!!! Amen.

Anyways. Now I am going to learn some other cool songs. :) Hasta la vista!

Las Vegas, here we come! (soon)

     We leave at 5:15 this afternoon for our big Las Vegas tour :) I cannot wait to get into the USA! Life is pretty great today. I got 2 of the 3.5 hours I work off so that I can finish packing. I did all of my laundry this morning, and managed to fit all of my stuff in one small little roller carry-on (plus my purse, backpack, sleeping bag and pillow).
     I can't wait to talk to my mom! I get my phone back when we come into the USA. It will be about midnight eastern time when we cross so I guess i'll have to wait till tomorrow but still. :) I have church history, then a free period, then marriage and family, then we leave! I miss home a lot, but I am still loving it up here for the most part. Las Vegas will be awesome!

Gotta go! Talk to you all shortly!

Btw, I got elected as one of the two trip documenters for our mission trip, so i will post a link to the blog when I get it set up! :D

Life is. SO. GOOD! :D

English Vocabulary test? Check. English 12 provincial worth 40% of my grade? Check. Health 12 final? Check. NO MORE HEALTH 12 OR ENGLISH 12? CHECK! WOO HOO!

     Hello second semester of my senior year! Wanna be friends? I freaking love you! 144 days until the last day of school. WOOT WOOT WOOT! Tummy is feeling a little better today. We have school on Sunday but that's totally fine since I only have Marriage and Family class this sunday. 

     My new schedule this semester will consist of Church History, Marriage and Family and Physical Education. I. Love. My. LIFE! Hahaha Can't wait till grad. Can't wait to see my family again. Can't wait till Las Vegas tour. (we leave Tuesday I think...) Can't wait to be able to text again. Can't wait for our Senior mission trip! I'm going to Honduras (which i found out yesterday is completely paid for now too :D) I love being a senior! You know what I will love more though? Being a freshman again!! :D For now I am enjoying life. Appreciating every day here at Fountainview because no matter how much I can't wait to leave, I will probably miss it at some point once I'm gone. Lol :) The Hinds family is here for the weekend too! What a nice surprise!! :D 

     Pet pieve of the day? When you are emailing someone and they don't reply for like a month. Haha so yeah...

Fact of the day: My mom is the coolest. Anyways...

This morning I read in James 4. What stuck out to me was how God answered my question about prayers that seem to go unanswered.

When you ask, you receive not, because you ask with the wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures. - James 4:3

Thought for the day... :)

Why Do People Do What They Do?

     Here lately it has occurred to me that people do some pretty stupid things. I do some pretty stupid things sometimes too, so I am included in the "people". I really don't understand why said people don't take into consideration how what they're doing will affect those around them - those they supposedly care about. I am totally guilty of this, too. Most of the time it's my bluntness that gets me in trouble. I have thought a lot about my "problem" this morning and last night.
     You see, I have a huge issue with people saying things behind other peoples' backs. That makes me very SUPER angry. So instead, I say what I need to say to their face. Sometimes this is okay because I manage to keep in all the mean thoughts and replace them with constructive thoughts. However, recently I may have let a few of those mean thoughts slip out. Honestly, I don't have any sympathy for the person I let the mean thoughts slip out about, you know? But at the same time, I don't feel that it was very Christ-like of me to give this person a piece of my mind.
     I thought about it and you know, when Christ was here on Earth He was good friends with this guy Judas. (not to say that the person I let have it is as bad off as Judas - bear with me haha) Judas was the epitome of a bad friend. As his final act of his friendship with Jesus, Judas turned Jesus over to be crucified for a little bit of silver. How lame right? But even Judas, a big fat JERK, felt really bad after he did that - so much that he killed himself. The fact that Judas felt bad helps me to feel better because it makes it a little easier to believe that other people MUST have consciences. However, the real purpose of this story and what really spoke to me was how Jesus handled it. Jesus = God. God = all-knowing. All-knowing = "knows the end from the beginning". So Jesus must have known all along that Judas would betray Him, you know? But yet somehow He managed to live with Judas on a daily basis, and more than that, He managed to love Judas. So with that said, I have realized how un-Christ-like it was of me to say what I said and to be so VERY angry with the person that is hurting people that mean a lot to me.
     God has brought me a long way between last night and this morning. Last night I tried to pray about it and I couldn't even make myself ask God to give me forgiveness. I didn't want to forgive this person - much less admit that I was wrong for telling said-person what I thought. But you know what? No matter how disappointed, angry and confused I am with this person, I can only love Christ as much as I love my enemies.
     That doesn't mean that everything is all rainbows and unicorns now. I am still quite hurt. But I have at least come to the point where I know that what I did was wrong, and I am giving it to God to help me forgive and eventually love said-person again. I am not sure how/when I will be able to bring myself to an apology, but I know that God can help me come to that point. In the mean time, I have other people that I need to make things right with. This darn tongue of mine.... haha Somethings are better left un-said. :)

But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison. - James 3:8